IBM has a lot of smart people and interesting technology so if you find job in the right department you can learn a lot and enjoy working here.

Cons

IBM is a very bureaucratic organization and this ends up putting a lot of obstacles in the way of doing the right thing sometimes. The bureaucracy also makes it hard to get a raise or get a promotion

Advice to Management

Management needs to remove some of the bureaucracy and provide better chances for advancement. They also need to provide more coordination between different department as there is a lot of duplication of effort that is wasting resources.

For a majority of time I was there, I worked for one product line. Some areas of the company have good local managers / leadership, which helps to provide a good working atmosphere where an employee can feel fulfilled with their contributions.

Salary seems to be a little better than average.

Cons

IBM is currently undergoing a complete transformation of it's business and business it deems 'not in its core' are being dismantled, with little regard to the intelligent resources that it affects.

Outwardly, IBM states that it invests in its employees and will allow them to move from between divisions / products, but in reality it provides little support to those attempting to get education to keep up-to-date technically or professionally (tuition support is touted but seldom is provided).

Severance of those "let go" is now down to 4 weeks maximum. Employees who are newly hired are given a 2 year grace period which keeps them from being included in job actions, but after that they can be targeted.

401k matching is only done on a yearly basis, so if you leave the company during the year there is no compensation.

Raises are minimal and depend on the area of the organization you work - personally I had received no raises for 5 years, although my performance reviews were between exceptional and acceptable all 5 years.

IBM is in the process of attempting to collocate resources into key offices with little to no ability to work remotely. This has also affected work-life balance within the company.

Advice to Management

First-line managers have little ability to reward key employees, and as a first-line manager I felt frustrated many times attempting to get employees rewarded or attempting to give employees opportunities to expand their knowledge base, while remaining productive.

GBS was pretty hard to handle with all the traveling, utilization, etc, but working as a consultant for different companies gave me a great deal of experience and exposure to pretty much all the experiences you want to have during your lifetime - from sad to funny, from beautiful to ugly.Exceeded pretty fast by working hard, and giving it my all. But that was when the economy was better.

Cons

Depending on which group you're working in, there are not too much personal relationship that you develop in GBS. The manager that supposed to rate you, doesn't work with you on a daily basis, and in most cases have never met you before. Reviews strickly rely on the people you work with that will report to this stranger who'll give you a rating your bonus, salary, and future depend on.